What's cooking?!
Gillian's weekly guide to local, seasonal and speciality food & drink plus lots of tasty food news...

I’VE got more 2012 food trends and ways to shake-up-your-wake-up for this week’s ‘farmhouse breakfast week’ celebrations - plus an easy-peasy recipe for your own muesli.
With ‘thrift’ topping this year’s culinary crazes, how wonderful it is to see two independent village shops ticking all the boxes.
Witherslack Community Shop, just off the A590 by The Derby Arms, has introduced a ‘pound zone’; the range of cereals, biscuits, fizzy drinks and crisps might not top the list in terms of healthy foods, but you are likely to find one or all of those ingredients in most people’s kitchen cupboards, so well done Witherslack for showing enterprise to get people through the door.
And, with a bit of luck, once they are in, customers will be tempted by the choice of locally-sourced foods from the village itself.
Meanwhile, Burton Village Stores is bang on trend with its doughnuts (approx 50p each), which came in at number seven on the food trend list I spotted; and with its range of goodies to do your own pickling (number three in the chart) including distilled vinegar – two 284ml bottles for 65p (a bargain as well) and Suma pickling spice at 75p a packet.
And like Witherslack, Burton Stores also has a bounty of special offers to tempt people who would otherwise head for the nearest supermarket – Branston baked beans at two tins for £1; prunes in syrup (remember breakfast week), two small tins for £1.39; and Heinz baked beans with pork sausages at two tins for £2.
On to Breakfast Week now and I’ve bagged a feast of ingredients for a full English – or full Scottish, in the case of Dales Butchers at Kirkby Lonsdale.
You usually have to head north of the border for two of my favourite breakfast items – fruit pudding and white pudding which, if you haven’t tried them, bring a tasty new dimension to a cooked breakfast. However, Mark will be making his own versions of these Scottish favourites this week – both the fruit pudding and the white pudding cost £2.75 per 500g – simply grill.
Mark also recommended his own-make haggis slice and black pudding – both £3.80 per 500g.
To complete your cooked breakfast, how about heading for Country Harvest at Ingleton where in-store butcher Pearsons of Ingleton are selling their breakfast sausage for 78p per 100g.
The sausage will be available for tasting today (Thursday) as part of the shop’s programme of tastings for Breakfast Week (dry cure bacon tomorrow).
And finally to The Honeypot at Hawkshead for the treat which is probably everyone’s favourite breakfast ingredient – bacon! The Honeypot sells Woodalls of Waberthwaite dry-cure Cumbrian bacon at £2.99 per 200g, available either smoked or plain.

Mixed Spice Muesli with a trio of toppings
(makes 3 single servings – prep time 10 minutes)
Ingredients:
125g jumbo oats
75g sultanas
½ tspn mixed spice
30g bran flakes
50g toasted flaked almonds
25g sunflower seeds
Topping 1:
2 tblspns dried cranberries
1 tblspn pistachio nuts, roughly chopped
Topping 2 (summer option):
25g blackberries
25g raspberries
Topping 3:
25g pomegranate seeds
1 tblspn pumpkin seeds
Method:
To make the muesli, mix all the ingredients in a bowl until well combined. Store in an airtight container.
To serve, pour one third of the muesli in a bowl, add milk according to preference and sprinkle over the topping of your choice.
You can also add seasonal fruits such as strawberries in summer and chopped Cox’s apples in September.

Last changed: Jan 25 2012 at 9:21 AM